The present procedures for disposal of medicines, especially expired medicines and unused medicines, pose a serious threat to public health. People dispose the medicines present in their residences by either flushing the medicines in public drainage system (i.e., down their toilets or sinks), or by throwing the medicines out with other household trash. Medical institutions, such as hospices and nursing homes, also follow a similar procedure. They dispose the medicines, present in their premises or homes of their patients, by flushing the medicines in the public drainage system. Some medical institutions follow a procedure of dissolving the medicines in hot water, absorbing them in diapers or mixing them in cat litter, before throwing them in the garbage.
The medicines flushed in the public drainage systems reach municipal water or effluent treatment plants of municipalities. Medicines disposed of with other regular trash reach landfills, where they leach into water bodies present in the landfills or into groundwater. These water bodies or groundwater supply usually flow out to municipal water or effluent treatment plants.
The effluent treatment plants are designed to efficiently remove conventional pollutants, such as sand particles and bacteria, from water and may be incapable of completely removing the medicines from the effluents. As a result, water with traces of medicines may reach our homes through a municipality-based water supply, because of the effluent treatment plant's inability to remove the medicine materials from the water before returning such water to a municipal water supply for human consumption.
The consumption of water polluted with traces of medicines by humans and animals may develop give rise to serious complications. Further, the complications may develop slowly and may be undetectable for long durations of time. An inadvertent and continuous consumption of the medicines may therefore be highly detrimental to public health. Therefore, there is a need to develop an efficient system for disposing medicines.
Moreover, the present procedures of disposal of medicines, especially psychotropic medicines, increased the chances of access to these medicines by unauthorized persons, such as addicts. Psychotropic medicines are highly addictive, and therefore, may lure addicts. The addicts may resolve to means, such as stealing, to acquire the psychotropic medicines discarded by the medical institutions. Therefore, there is a need to develop an efficient system for disposing medicines that reduces risk of stealing of the medicines by addicts and other unauthorized persons.
Various conventional disposal systems have been developed for safely disposing medicines and hazardous medical wastes, such as needle syringes, pathological and dental wastes, and surgical gloves. Though these conventional disposal systems have been effective in disposing hazardous medical wastes, they may be ineffective in disposing medicines.
Therefore, there exists a need to develop an apparatus that allows safe and environment friendly disposal of medicines, thereby ensuring that our municipality water supply is completely free from any traces of these medicines. Further, there is a need to develop an apparatus that prevents any access of the medicines by unauthorized persons. Furthermore, the apparatus should be lightweight, inexpensive to manufacture and portable. Moreover, the apparatus should be convenient to use, so that the general public may be able to use the apparatus without any undue problems.